


And Then, All At Once

by starsapart



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy considering how the show ended, M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsapart/pseuds/starsapart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Canon AU] Merlin waits. Time passes. Merlin dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then, All At Once

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the very famous quote of the very famous book by John Green, 'The Fault in Our Stars'.
> 
> I chose to ignore the "real" ending, because my heart can't take the thought of Merlin living a thousand years without Arthur.

Merlin waits.

Time passes.

Merlin dies.

*****  
After Arthur‘s death, Merlin is numb. His arms feel empty and the cold won’t leave him. He stares at a void until he cannot longer stand himself, how weak he’s become. He knows it won’t do him any good to be perpetually in grief, that he wasn’t the only one who loved, _loves_ , Arthur. So decides, at last, to make his way back home.

He returns to Camelot after a week. His eyes are still red, no matter how much he tries to hide it, and through his watery eyes he sees that even as Guinevere stands tall, the proud, fierce (lonely) Queen of Camelot, the people are still hoping against hope for a miracle that would bring back for their golden King. It takes one look at Merlin’s demeanor --how defeated and utterly wrecked he looks, how in grief it seems like he can barely hold his own weight, how horribly empty the space besides him is-- for the time for praying to end.

The King is dead. Long live the Queen.

Gaius greets him with open arms and his favourite meal. He holds him while he sobs.

“It’s not fair,” he says like a petulant child. “I was so close to saving him, but I still failed. What am I going to do now?”

“Stay here with me,” Gaius says. “The Queen will lift the ban on magic, and she will need you. You can be the Court Sorcerer.”

Merlin says nothing. He doesn’t tell him how devoid of feeling he is, or the way he can sense Avalon calling back to him, urging him to stand and hold vigil for his King. He doesn’t say that his rightful place is, as it has always been, besides his best friend.

Merlin can be selfless, and he can be selfish. Even if all he wants is to return to Avalon, and wait for Arthur there, Gaius asked him to stay with him, so he does. He spends the rest of Gaius’ days as the Assistant Physician, helping him in all he can. When the time comes to pass, Gaius joins the list of people who have died in his arms.

But Merlin is selfish, too. It takes a long time for Queen Guinevere to go around politics and tiresome negotiations and tricky diplomatic moves, but she finally manages to lift the ban on magic, a few weeks after Gaius’ death. Merlin is in the process of secretly finding a new Court Physician, preparing to return to Avalon, when she comes one day.  
“It would be my honour and my pleasure to offer you the position of Camelot’s Court Sorcerer,” she said formally. Truth is, after Arthur’s passing everything has changed. Guinevere is a kind soul, hardened by duty and the inability to mourn her husband properly. Merlin can help to think she holds a grudge against him. Maybe she envies him. After all, he was with Arthur in his final moments. Merlin also suspects Guinevere realised the true nature of his feelings towards the late King.

Merlin stands still for a little while, while a battle takes form within him. ‘Stay and help her preserve Arthur’s kingdom’. But the selfish part in him wins, the one that says ‘your magic is not for Guinevere, has never been. All of your magic, all of yourself was for Arthur, and Arthur is gone. Gaius is the only thing that kept you in Camelot, and now he is gone, too.’

“I am afraid I must decline,” Merlin says finally, forcing the words out, and offers no explanation. 

For a moment, he imagines that Guinevere is going to say something, ask him again, offer him a knighthood or something as ridiculous as that, but in the end she doesn’t. Her face is inexpressive, and Merlin wonders if there’s any trace of his old friend Gwen left in her. “I understand. It has always been a privilege being your friend,” she says, and then turns away and leaves.

‘This is her goodbye,’ Merlin thinks. And then he realises, Guinevere is wrong, she doesn’t understand, she just can’t. She doesn’t know why Merlin can’t stay away from Avalon. And it’s not her fault, because it is also beyond his own understanding, maybe even beyond his magic. It is like the water is calling for him, trying to drag him back, tugging on his very heartstrings. And it is been a long time since he could call Guinevere a friend. Not since she accepted Arthur’s love whilst still longing for Lancelot. He doesn’t blame her, but he can’t forget it.

Guinevere was right in only one thing. It was goodbye. Merlin found a new Court Physician soon enough, one who vowed to help the people with all her might, and when no one was looking, he took his things and left in the middle of the night. There was no he wanted to see, and no one he wanted to talk to. Camelot could never be home without Arthur.

Merlin often wondered if anyone remembered him.

***

There is a small village half a day’s walk from Avalon. They needed a physician, and Merlin needed a place to stay. It works well enough. He hasn’t work up the courage to go to Avalon just yet, to see the place where the one he loves the most is resting. He knows Freya is watching over him, in a way he can’t. He’s helpless, which is something he hates, so he avoids the stupid Lake. 

The people get to know him as the young man with the kind face, and the sad eyes. Mothers bring their sick children to him, and he cures them (using both Gaius’ methods in plain sight on the worried parents, and magic in secret -it is after all, a hard habit to break). Young men come to him grudgingly, and he is remembered of another young man who used to believe he was above mortality (and that is where he stops his train of thought.) He helps expecting women, and he eases the way for old people. He tries hard to save as many people as he can, in memory not only of those he failed to help, but of those he killed.

Avalon calls him still, but its call is quieter somehow, as if being close has appeased the urge. And it isn’t that he doesn’t _want_ to go to Avalon. He thinks about it sometimes: he would sit next to the shore, maybe he dip his feet into the water, and talk to the image of Arthur that still lives in his mind. He realised long ago that he’s afraid if the goes, he’ll never come back, not eat or drink or sleep for days, feeding only on the memory of Arthur, and all he has lost. He’s the most powerful warlock to have ever existed, and yet the memories of his mistakes defeat him so easily.

But he dreams. They are not nightmares, he never sees destruction, or fire, or death, yet he wakes up in tears every single time. He dreams memories of the happy times, he dreams of when he first came to Camelot, when everything was easy. He sees Gwen, so happy and in love with Lancelot. He sees Morgana, kind and gentle, and so fierce. He sees all his friends, and they are all alive. 

But all those memories of the things he’s lost, are always followed by things that never happened, so utterly unreachable they were in their time. It is _him_ , of course, as he always has been, but in ways he never even let voice inside his mind.

(How hard it is, to love him. To love a dead man. Merlin loved Arthur’s expressive eyes, the way he refused to cry, his hair that looked like a halo in the sunshine, his hands, his broad body... and all those things are gone. But above all, he loved Arthur’s heart, his soul, and while the time passes, and Merlin struggles to remember his voice, and the way he looked at him, he loves his soul still).

Sometimes he dreams Arthur and him are away from Camelot, hunting, maybe on a noble but idiotic quest, or sometimes just spending the days away from obligation. Arthur’s smile is blinding, and he can see himself smiling right back, looking every bit as besotted as he feels. And Arthur would see that, and would lean in closer, and they would share the sweetest kiss two people ever shared.

Other times, he dreams of Arthur holding Court, the rightful King of Albion, and Arthur would look at him, and ask his opinions. Merlin is respected and loved, just as Arthur. Sometimes he is his Advisor, others he is the Court Sorcerer, and others, he is his Consort, and he sits next to him in throne to his right, and holds his hand, and is not afraid of showing the whole of their Kingdom how much he loves the King.

There are some times he dreams things he dares not think of again in the morning, things like Arthur and him being together in the most intimate of ways, of Arthur being inside him, of him on his knees, against a wall, on the bed. Rough or gentle, after happening a long time, or achingly new. He dreams of Arthur’s eyes as he climaxes, of the way he would hold him afterwards, of the soft words whispered against his skin.

(Merlin keeps those memories for the long, cold nights, when he feels like Avalon is shouting at him to come back. He wants to go, but knows he shouldn’t, but the image of himself taking too much sleeping draught mocks him, and Merlin how it would feel if the oppressive loneliness disappeared.)

Merlin always thought those were the worst dreams - he woke up alone and sticky, and would often break into tears mere seconds after waking up - but he turned out to be wrong. One day he dreamt he woke up next to Arthur, and he was holding him, and he was warm and happy, and Arthur kissed his forehead and told him he loved him. Before he could say it back, he woke up.

(He was cold, and he tried to hold himself, imagining it was really Arthur. He cried until he fell asleep again, and didn’t bother getting out of bed that day.)

There was a girl in the village who became his apprentice, and she idolised him almost to the point of love. He tried to kid himself, he tried to love her back, but his heart, as he’d always known, belonged entirely to the King resting in Avalon.

***

Merlin grows cold with the years. He tries not to, but the light from his eyes slowly goes away. He grows old, too, becomes Dragoon, and the melancholy comes back, because what he wouldn’t give to see Arthur, how would he would have looked, had the almighty fate he served so much been more fair to him, to _them_. His blond hair would have turned white, his belly would have turn soft, and Merlin would have mocked him, as he held him close every night and-

-even if he had lived, Arthur would have been Guinevere’s. He tries not to hate the lonely Queen of Camelot, of the falling Albion he thinks he should try and save, even at the expense of his aching heart, but he can’t. Guinevere had what he loved the most.

He knows is time to go to see his King because he came to him in yet another dream. This one didn’t make him sad though, not at all. Just peaceful.

He is young again, and he is at the Lake. Arthur is next to him, alive and well, and he looks at him the way he had always wanted him to. Warm and adoring, like a lover. He takes Merlin’s hand in his own, and looks at him in the eye.

“It’s been long enough, my darling. Come to me now.” 

His voice is like honey, and Merlin feels happy once again. Arthur leans in to kiss him, once, just a peck, but so much more than what Merlin had ever expected, and it’s Arthur...

When he wakes up, he smiles. His lips tingle a little bit, and it almost feels like someone shared his bed the night before. It is no hardship then, to come up with a story to pacify the people of the village and say goodbye one final time, to give away his things, and finally, _finally_ , give into the pull of Avalon.

It is no surprise to him that the Lake is the same as it’s always been, as if the magic that surrounds it keeps even time from touching it. Merlin, however, is marked by time, as all living things are. He hesitates a little before walking in, but he has nothing left on this Earth. 

“Merlin,” a soft voice says, and once upon a time it would have been the voice Merlin would have most longed to hear. Now it’s a welcomed presence, but nothing more.

“Freya,” he replies, and he smiles at the bittersweet memories of when he was young.

“Come on now,” she says, extending her hand for him to take, because he is ready at last, to follow her into the waters. “The gods have seen your sorrows, and have taken pity of you.”

Merlin takes one second to be angry. “I don’t want their pity. I want...” he trails off. It’s been decades, but he still doesn’t know if it’s appropriate to say what he really wants to say.

Yet Freya knows, and she smiles sweetly. “Come with me, old friend. Your King has been waiting for you all these years, and now it’s time for both of you to rest.”

Merlin goes, of course, and only when he is already waist-deep into the water, clutching Freya’s hand like a child would his mother, it occurs to him, “Waiting? Rest?”

“You and Arthur are two sides of the same coin,” she says, and he wonders if everyone in their lives were given little cards of phrases to use when most inconvenient. “He is incomplete without you, he cannot rest. You will reunite in the other side, and the balance will be restored.”

Her voice is like soothing, and he feels nothing but lightness as he goes deeper and deeper. He is not drowning, he is walking into Avalon.

“You will sleep and the years on this Earth will pass, until you are nothing but the most grandiose of legends. One day, when Albion is beyond recognition, the world will need you again, and then you’ll rise.”

Merlin hears this, but doesn’t quite understand it, because he is but a boy once again, and his Arthur is but a boy again, standing in front with a blinding smile, the one he thought he’d never see again, and he is being enveloped in his warm arms, and he is kissing the top of his head, and

“I love you. I love you forever.”

And is all he’s ever dreamt, since he was a bumbling young boy from the country, with a secret that could get him killed, and an unlikely but precious friendship with the Prince, until right this moment, when after everything that’s come to pass, he finally gets the chance to hear this, and to say it back, with tears of joy, and ill-concealed relief that the gods understood.

“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this nearly a year ago, to deal with all my feels, but life happened and I forgot about it. I found it in my documents in November, and I thought it would be a good idea to post this in the anniversary of the finale. BBC Merlin is, in a way, the first real fandom I've ever been in, and although I'm sad it ended, I'm also really glad I got into the fandom, and cried alongside all of you. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
